Codemasters announces Dirt Rally 2.0

Launches February next year.

Codemasters has announced that Dirt Rally 2.0 is in development, and will launch as a full release in February next year.

The announcement trailer, which you can view above, shows off a bunch of suitably muddy cars bumping wheels across a variety of pretty environments and twisting tracks.

As of yet, Codies hasn’t offered much detail about the game itself, but the studio has stated that Dirt Rally 2.0 will include “Six rally locations around the world” where players can take on “incredible hand crafted stages” in a variety of both modern and historic rally cars.

Codies didn’t specify which locations will be available, but a couple of the images in the gallery below were labelled “Argentina”, so it's likely the land of beef and football will feature in some way. It’s also the official game of the FIA World Rallycross Championship, so expect some pretty authentic RallyX to be feature in the game.

The original DiRT Rally saw Codemasters return to a simulationist style of racer, after experimenting with a lighter, more arcade format in previous DiRT games. DiRT Rally quickly made a name for being A) brilliant and B) ferociously challenging, often feeling more like a vehicular horror game than a racer due to its sheer uncompromising intensity.

The most obvious difference at the moment is that DiRT Rally 2.0 is launching as a full, multiplatform release, whereas the original was initially a PC only, Early Access title. Clearly the success of the first game has restored Codemasters’ confidence in a purer rallying experience.

DiRT rally will launch on the 26th of February 2019. You can view a bunch of images from the game below.